SPIRITUALITY SEEN IN JACOB
[p. 409] SPIRITUALITY SEEN IN JACOB
1 Corinthians 1:4-9; 1 Corinthians 2:7-16; Genesis 30:25; Genesis 33:4-7
The links between these scriptures are in Jacob (to say nothing of Joseph or Rachel) and the Corinthian saints, and in turning to them, I have spirituality in mind. Jacob and the Corinthian saints were primarily possessed of spirituality in principle. These verses from Genesis would help to show that. Spirituality was there in principle in Jacob, and it was also in principle among the Corinthian saints when the first letter to Corinth was written. The epistles to that assembly have in mind that the principle of spirituality was there basically. The apostle has no doubt about it, but he resorts to abstract statements, and hence the verses I read in the first chapter are abstract; that is to say, the things mentioned were not in the true sense concretely present in them. For instance, “I thank my God always on your behalf, for the grace of God which is given you by Jesus Christ; that in every thing ye are enriched by him”. If we have time, we shall see later that these statements are not concretely true in that assembly; nor are further statements — “Even as the testimony of Christ was confirmed in you; so that ye come behind in no gift; waiting for the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ; who shall also confirm you unto the end, that ye may be blameless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. God is faithful, by whom ye were called unto the fellowship of His Son Jesus Christ our Lord”. These verses from four to eight are abstract.
You may query my use of the word ‘abstract’, but it is a word to be used, and used freely in dealing with Scripture. To illustrate that, in chapter 5 of this very epistle we are told of the wickedness of a certain man there who had to be “put away” — an expression that is not now used as to discipline among the brethren who have intelligence, but was quite right in that day, it being confirmed later in the chapter, “Remove the wicked person from amongst yourselves”. But then the idea of the passover came in, “Christ our passover is sacrificed for us”, and “Therefore”, the apostle says, “let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, neither with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth”. And, “Purge out the old leaven, that ye may be a new lump, according as ye are unleavened”. That is what I call abstract. It is a nail in a sure place on which things can be hung reliably, so that we may work out other things and leave only what is right. So one would cite other illustrations of this. John’s epistle has many of them, and those who read it, and perhaps minister from it, do well to recognise that, and no doubt they do, so as to work out and develop other things in order that they might be refused in our minds and withdrawn from.
Now, in this sense, 1 Corinthians corresponds with Jacob. He was dealing with Laban, a difficult man. The apostle was dealing with certain persons in Corinth who were difficult; he held them in reserve. Conditions were not present to enable him to deal with them, but they should be dealt with; and hence he says, “Having in readiness to avenge all disobedience when your obedience shall have been fulfilled”, 2 Corinthians 10:6. That is to say, the apostle would reserve exercising discipline. In fact, he did not come. He intended to come, but left the place, and they were questioning his veracity because he did not come; but he did not come because he loved them. He did not wish to use the rod, but rather had recourse to the exercise of grace; and he sent Timotheus to them, a reliable young man who knew him,
[p. 411] and knew his ways as they were in Christ. So he said, “I have sent to you Timotheus ... who shall put you in mind of my ways as they are in Christ”, 1 Corinthians 4: 17. That is one of the methods he adopted — wisely, as the sequel showed, awaiting the time when all the brethren at Corinth would learn to judge themselves. There was a great want of self-judgment in that sense, and Paul has to wait to exercise discipline because the exercise of discipline might stumble others. We have always to be careful in the use of discipline. Paul was very careful whether he should use the rod or act in love, and he chose to send Timotheus so that they might see in him the apostle’s ways, how he did things, as they were in Christ. It was not simply the bare thought of what Paul did, but the things that he did in Christ were placed in a suitable, reliable position, and could be regarded and spoken of as in that position, and so they were. So Timotheus went to Corinth, and others went, too. Another thing you find in this epistle is the use of childish words. One marvels at times, as one notices the childish words that Paul brings into his language in dealing with those saints; and, in order to transfer the thing without hurting anyone, he says, “When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things”, 1 Corinthians 13: 11. So that we have to discern how things are, looking into our own selves, for the apostle here, as we all ought to be, was very careful as to the use of language lest he should provoke unnecessarily resentful feelings in those saints, and they should be rendered hard and severe, and turned aside. Hence, Paul sent Timotheus, a young brother, but a young brother with great wisdom, of whom Paul said, “I have no man like-minded”, Philippians 2:20. How the Lord would love to classify certain young brothers and sisters: He would love to do it, and those of us here in this [p. 412] company who are older would love to do it, too, so as to encourage young persons to do things, and to do them well, because it is not only what we do, but what is done well, that is important. As it was said of the daughters of Zelophehad, “The daughters of Zelophehad speak right”, Numbers 27:7. They not only spake, but spake right; so in the case of the man whose tongue was loosed, it says, “he spoke right”, Mark 7: 35. He had not been able to do so.
In order to serve, we must know how to do things well, and the Lord would teach us to do it. So Paul said of Timotheus, “I have no man like-minded”.
Paul spoke of certain ones in that way as though they were his delegates, committed to him by the Lord to be used in the service according to his wisdom, and he used such as Titus and Timotheus according to his wisdom. So children and young people have to be carefully handled in this sense. Hence, Paul says, “I have no one like-minded who will care with genuine feeling how ye get on”. The Lord is looking down on each of us, to see how we get on. We should be advanced more than we were last year, and so forth. It is a question of how we get on, and this matter of spirituality is reachable and within the range of all of us. We may have to start young, and the way may be long and tiresome, and we may be turned aside by the weariness of it, but we have to have patience, for it says, “He that endureth to the end ...”. Matthew 10: 22. If things are to be reached, we have got to reach the end of them, and God has apportioned the end of them; He has measured them we do not measure, He does, and “he that endureth to the end shall be saved”. That is to say, the end is a saving matter, and young people need to think of it. The way may be long. It was in Jacob’s time; he had a wearisome journey. He had to look after the cattle of his father-in-law — an unreasonable father-in-law. In-laws are apt to be, and we have to be [p. 413] careful, because they are usually older, and we need patience with them.
So Joseph was born. He had been waited for Rachel waited for him, and God remembered her in waiting. That is most beautiful! In the waiting time He remembers us. God remembered Rachel, and surely enough Joseph came — a child of promise. It is very important for households to have in mind that God at times gives children of promise: children who will be marked in the testimony. How important it is to bring them up in view of that! “And God remembered Rachel”. He remembered Rebecca, her predecessor, in like circumstances. In this case, Joseph came — the eleventh son of Jacob. It may be said, Well, he had enough. But not for God! We must not regulate our families according to our own thoughts. It is a question of God, dear brethren. We have to do with God in all these matters. Whether it be wives, or husbands, or children, God has His rights, and woe be to him who disregards the rights of God. God needed twelve sons in the family of Jacob, and Rachel had that assurance, for she said prophetically, “The Lord shall add to me another son”. God said He would add it to Himself, for the other was to be the occasion of her death. A solemn thing! Yet it was the accomplishment of the purpose of God. What can be greater than the accomplishment of divine purposes, even if one suffers for it, and loses one’s life for it! The purpose of God is valuable beyond words. She can say, “The Lord shall add to me another son”. Another son meant in effect that God would complete His twelve — the great number twelve in the family of Jacob — and it was to go down the ages right into eternity.
So Rachel dies. Benjamin was the son of his mother’s sorrow. God would not forget that, either. He was the son of his mother’s sorrow, but he was the son of his father’s right hand. So we can all leave it [p. 414] that what God does is right. The greatest thing to learn is the rightness of what God does.
So, as I said, He added to Rachel and Jacob another son — the twelfth. Now Jacob was not unaffected. He felt the loss of Rachel. He loved her. We all know the story of Rachel’s betrothal to Jacob, and now it is the day of her sorrow, but she comes down the ages. Her sorrow was not for nothing; “Rachel weeping for her children”, Matthew 2: 18.
These are in the records of heaven, so we should learn to look afar off, dear brethren. One feels it for one’s self, how short-sighted we are. We have to learn to look afar off; if we do not, we may forget we are purged from our former sins. We are to look afar off and see what can happen in the purposes and ways of God, and be in line with them. Jacob was in the line of the ways of God, as Isaac and Rebecca had been, and he says to Laban, “Send me away, that I may go unto mine own place, and to my country”.
He is to return to his land and to his father: a most worthy thought, and born of the idea of spirituality; a good root, a spiritual root, that he should now think of returning to his land and to his father’s house — to Isaac.
What I want to say briefly is, that he delayed in the thing. He would do better; he would make a bargain with his father-in-law, a hard man, and in these bargains we are sure to meet hardness. We are hard ourselves. The apostle warns the Corinthians about going to law with one another. We are enjoined against it, because hardness will meet hardness. So it was that Jacob met hardness in Laban. They made a bargain, and at the end Jacob had the best of the bargain. He decided he would have the speckled cattle — he would take those for his wages. When we come to wages, we are on dangerous ground. Since the recent war began, there have been great opportunities for making money, but all tending to [p. 415] hardness and loss of spirituality, loss of growth spiritually. And Jacob was not free of this. He made a bargain with Laban, and Laban made a bargain with him. It was seemingly fairly gracious, but it wasted considerable time, and time is one of the most precious things there are in the ways of God, because there is so much to be done. So we are told, “Redeeming the time, because the days are evil”, Ephesians 5: 16. We find it hard to get to meetings, and we miss meetings because of our bargaining, perhaps, seeking higher wages, or extra wages because of late working, and we lose. Yet Jacob did not lose from that point of view; his cattle increased; but still, he was a wage-earner, a poor calling for the root of promise, but that is what he was. God is pleased in His governmental ways to allow things to go that way, whereas, if we are simple and take the shortest course to heaven, to the land of promise, so to speak, we escape much. We may lose extra money; lose a larger bank account, but heaven — what can be compared with that? It is a question of God’s purposes of love and our part in those purposes. Dear brethren, we are at the parting of the ways. It is a question just now whether we go on to the purpose of God, and the apostle had in mind that the Corinthians should go on; so, as I said, he spoke in the abstract, and gave them all the credit he could; but it was from the divine side, the objective side. Objective truth is right in its place, but it is not subjective truth. We may not have travelled the way for it, but when we do we have to go the way Jacob did — he came to Canaan, and ultimately to Isaac.
So I referred to these passages in Genesis because he told Laban he wanted to go to his place and to his land. This bargain was made, and the time was spent, and Isaac was put off, and Canaan was put off. He must have those wages, but the root of the thing was in him. I am only speaking now very practically,
[p. 416] dear brethren, so that we may avoid these things. If we are in danger of them, turn away from them. So Jacob wasted the time. However many cattle he gained, he wasted the time. He was a long time in getting to his father. Could it be said that he loved his father? It is difficult to say. Why did he wait? If one says, I would like to go to be with the Lord, then why wait? There is a way. The way to the end of the purpose of God is open to us, and the thing is to take it.
So Jacob did take it. He had the elements of spirituality in his heart all the time, and that was centred in Joseph, not in Isaac now; it had been, but now it is a question of Joseph. We must not attempt to regulate our families in this sense of doing our wills in them. Let God do it. Jacob evidently fixed his heart on Joseph, for we are told, “Now Israel loved Joseph more than all his children”,
(Genesis 37: 3), a very precious fact. The succeeding history is full of this fact and all that enters into it. Spirituality enters into the relations of Jacob and Joseph.
I am seeking to urge on the brethren this thought of spirituality. The fact that you are here today would be a strong indication that the root of it is in you. The root of it is in christendom, or God would not go on with it. He desires us to go on: not to deal with more wages and increase our cattle, but go straight forward in the right way; as the word is, “And thine ears shall hear a word behind thee, saying, This is the way, walk ye in it”, Isaiah 30: 21. We have to learn where the way is and walk in it.
So Jacob did start. I only read the verses in chapter 33 to bring out that Joseph was still in his mind, and he was in mind right to the end of the chapter. The last conversation of Jacob and Joseph is beautiful. It brings out the greatness and glory of Jacob; even in the presence of Joseph, Jacob [p. 417] was greater. God is intent on making us greater than we are, because we are great essentially and great potentially, if we are christians, and He will go through with that with every one of us, as He did with Jacob. Jacob’s brightest days were his closing days. I long for that, having that in mind, not for myself only, because that would, perhaps, be selfish, but for the brethren; it is a question of the brethren. So Jacob puts Ephraim above Manasseh.
I was speaking a moment ago of the correspondence between the histories of the Corinthians and Jacob, and it is very striking, because the first epistle ends gloriously: “Behold, I shew you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye”, 1 Corinthians 15: 51, 52. What an end that is! But there is more. The second epistle is one that works the subjective thing out. That is what I am aiming at now. The idea of the second letter is to be worked out in the brethren.
“He that is spiritual judgeth all things”. What a man that is! Surely Jacob was on that line; he judged all things at the end. He judged the twelve tribes — “Listen to Israel your father”, he says (Genesis 49: 2); and he gives an account prophetically of every one of them. “Listen to Israel your father” a beautiful finish. It came out in Jacob, and it came out in Joseph, too, so that they were “lovely and pleasant in their lives, and in their death they were not divided”, so to speak. Joseph said in effect at his death, I want all to come with me. I do not want to go to heaven by myself. That is the principle. Nor does any one of us rightly wish to go to heaven alone: “God ... has raised us up together, and has made us sit down together in the heavenlies in Christ Jesus”. That is the divine thought; that we might be there together, and that is how Joseph went. Jacob, too, went on that principle, carrying the tribes with him, telling them about their future. He is [p. 418] living in futures now, as I might say. That is a term often used. When he was in Padan-aram he was living in the futures of cattle. I have seen people who keep a diary, a history of their cattle, so as to work out the relative value of each of the cows, whatever they might be. Well, that is a poor future.
Joseph dealt in futures, that is to say, he would have all the tribes go together. That is what is meant spiritually, and it is that that Paul had in mind when he said, “... raised us up together, and has made us sit down together in the heavenlies in Christ Jesus”not alone. It is a poor thing for anyone to think of going to heaven by himself. You say, It is worth going to heaven. Of course: but it is not God’s mind you have before you, but your own mind. Joseph had the mind of God, and so did Jacob; hence he put Ephraim before Manasseh. He would settle the position; he would establish the mind of God in the two tribes; and the twelve tribes are going through according to Revelation — going through into eternity. In the mind of God the twelve tribes never fail.
I would say that you would not be groaning about wishing to depart and be with the Lord unless you are only thinking of your present circumstances. It is a poor thing, and I do not think heaven cares for it, or thinks much of it. It is a poor sort of thing when we are sorrowful or troubled or short of business — or whatever else it may be that disturbs us here — to begin to talk of going to be with the Lord. I would rather say I would wait for the brethren. Of course, Paul said that he desired to depart and be with Christ, which is far better, but then he did not judge that way, but waited for the Philippians. That is love. The purpose of God never fails, and we are in it. As was said to Daniel, “Blessed is he that waiteth, and cometh to the thousand three hundred and five and thirty days. But go thou thy way till [p. 419] the end be: for thou shalt rest, and stand in thy lot at the end of the days”, (Daniel 12: 12, 13) — wait for that — the utmost limit of time that God has appointed, because the best will come in then. “I will raise him up at the last day”.
There is not much more to say, but the passage in 1 Corinthians 2:7 - 16 corresponds with what happened in Genesis 33; that is to say, when Jacob saw his brother. He had been afraid of him, and had had reason to be, but his brother was more conciliated than he thought he was. God does things for us as we take the right way, and Jacob now is in the right way. He is going to Canaan, to Isaac, and things are clearing up, as it were. He has settled matters with his brother, and now, what about Joseph? I read these verses because of Joseph’s place in them. There were the two maidservants and their children, and Leah and her children. These were to go on one after another, and then, finally, Rachel and Joseph. Notice that I am putting Rachel first, because that is how it stands in the early part of the passage — “Rachel and Joseph”; but the time comes for the review (and the review will come sooner or later) and it meant that the maidservants were first; Jacob intended that, and he intended Leah and her children to be second; and then the striking thing is that it is not Rachel and Joseph, but “Joseph ... and Rachel”. That is to say, the divine idea we are speaking of, the idea of spirituality, triumphs — only in a little way, but it is on that line. The mind of God must go through, and the mind of God requires spirituality, and sure it is that while Jacob thought of Joseph and would have done all he could for his beloved child, it is apparent that it is God who put Joseph first “Joseph ... and Rachel”. Joseph is first and then Rachel. The idea of spirituality must go through. I, therefore, urge on the brethren to keep it before you; however little it may be, keep it before you,
[p. 420] and see if it is growing. So in both epistles you see the idea of spirituality constantly growing. It is included in the passage I read, “The spiritual discerns all things”. You may wonder whether it is growing, but you should take it out, so to speak, and look at it, and see that it is growing. God intends it should you are not going to heaven without it. It is intended it should be there, and so it is. It is there in the presence of Esau; Joseph is before Rachel. The idea of spirituality must stand, and that is the point just now.
How are we going to heaven? The Lord is about to take us. He means us to be spiritual: we are to go there spiritually, and that is within the range of everyone. That is the idea in Joseph, and what I have in mind in this word is that we might be spiritual, young and old, that every one of us might be spiritual; “the spiritual discerns all things, and he is discerned of no one”, 1 Corinthians 2: 15. How important and how advantageous that is! It implies triumph for spirituality, for if no one discerns the spiritual man, he will be triumphant. That is God’s way. So in the letters to the assemblies, we have those that overcome. The end of each gives us an overcomer. There are great rewards for overcomers, and overcoming implies spirituality. May God bless this thought to us, for His name’s sake.